Gold nanoparticles have many interesting properties. One of them is their ability to convert an electromagnetic radiation to thermal energy [1]. Additionally, the surface of gold nanoparticles may be easily modified with a variety of different compounds, e.g. aptamers (short oligonucleotides chains that are capable of binding to a specific target ligand with high affinity [2]) to increase selectivity of the modified nanoparticles towards tumor cells. These properties make gold nanoparticles good candidates for photothermal therapy (PTT). PTT is a therapy which find application in cancer treatment due to hyperthermia.
The aim of our research was to investigate the effectiveness of photothermal therapy. First, the hollow gold nanoshells (GNSs) with absorption in NIR region were synthesized using templated galvanic replacement reaction of silver to gold [3]. Then, the surface of GNSs was modified with anti nucleolin aptamer (AS1411) or anti-mucin 1 aptamer (MUC1) since some cancer cells overexpress such proteins (nucleolin or mucin 1) [2,4]. Subsequently, the in vitro studies were conducted on selected cell lines derived from: lung (normal MRC−5 and tumor A549), skin (normal HaCaT and tumor A375) and breast (normal MCF-10A and tumor MCF-7). The cytotoxicity of obtained GNSs−AS1411 and GNSs-MUC1 was evaluated with MTT test. In the last stage of our research, the effectiveness of photothermal therapy was evaluated. For this purpose, GNSs−AS1411 and GNSs-MUC1 were incubated with cell cultures and irradiated for 5 min (808 nm).

Poster Presenter - Student Poster(s)

Dominika Kalinowska

MSc Eng.Warsaw University of TechnologyWarsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland

Dominika Kalinowska was born in Poland, in 1991. She received the B.E. (2014) and MSc (2015) degrees in biotechnology from the Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland. In 2015 she joined the Chemical Sensors Research Group, Institute of Biotechnology, Warsaw University of Technology, as PhD student. Her research interests include the in vitro studies on photothermal therapy and biological activity of nanomaterials (such as quantum dots).